Well, this was kind of an impulse purchase but I'm rather impressed. I found a NOS Kentucky KM-254 on Reverb, offered about $100 less than asking price, and shop owner gave me a gig bag and strap button for total price a smidge more than $400, not including tax.
It's pretty and MAN is this a better Kentucky than the ones I used to see around in the 80's and 90's (note: I never played a top-end Kentucky in those days or since, just what you'd find at a local music store, not in Nashville or Lansing.)
I wanted a beater, traveler, leave it in the car and I'm not worried about it getting stolen mandolin and I'd say this fits the bill. It does not have the "whomp" chop of a used Eastman 505 I briefly owned, but the Eastman (let it go bc of narrow neck) had been played for years, so we'll see.
Neck is comfy and beefy, though a smidge more "v" than I like, and the lower strings have a nice tone. It's not loud, but that's actually proved kind of nice for practicing in my home office room.
Two last comments: the headstock inlay is beautiful, for this level of mandolin, and finally, I am surprised how much difference I feel in large frets (on my other mandolins) vs the small frets on this one. I'll get used to it, it's fine, but didn't think I'd notice it so much.
We truly live in mandolin paradise times when you can buy an all-solid wood mando that looks nice for less than $500 and also have a thousand options of builds from there on up.
These options were so much rarer just a few decades ago.
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